


Louder voices

by Hagne



Series: Scrool of Mayhem [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Domestic Violence, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Girl Power, Modern Girl in Skyrim, Protective, Strong Female Characters, Swearing, True Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-01-16 16:54:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21274547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagne/pseuds/Hagne
Summary: We came into the world shouting at the top of our lungs, a scream life and time would have toned down along the way, trailing off a voice that would have eventually burnt out in our aching throat in taking our last breath.  But when it was time for Nadja to leave that world, to go, she did not simply whisper her goodbye, she did not let the wind swallow her words or people cover her voice. She shouted with all she had, reaching the unreachable, breaking the unbreakable, making the sound of her voice reverberating as an endless and unfading echo for others to hear, and to answer to.





	1. Chapter 1

\- _Hush._  
A whimper followed the hiss she had just blown against the temple that Nadja felt crashing painfully against her jaw when Josephine tried to hide her face in the crook of her neck, her cries muffled by the hand she pressed nervously against the trembling mouth of the young girl, praying for the terrified teen to calm down.  
But the more she begged the teenager to keep her voice down, the more the cries against her palm grew in volume, echoing in the silent room where she could hear another person breathing heavily along with them.  
Nadja could hear distinctly the low crackling of the wooden floor under the weight of old boots, just as she could sniff in the air the pungent smell of alcohol, probably vodka, the shoddy kind, as the bastard kept on chanting under his breath the name of the young girl curled up on her chest.  
His sickening singsong was driving Josephine insane, and Nadja knew from experience that nothing she could have said would have been able to free the teenager from the panic that was driving her mad.  
She was too lost to fight back or to run away, and Nadja knew that in that condition, the crazy man who had just kicked down her door with the strength of his fists and kicks would have beaten Josephine to death.  
It was easy for men like him to do it, to hit, hard in the face, and kick, repeating in the womb, and to strike, straight in the chest, _how easy was for them to bring a woman down_, and with a girl as thin as Josephine, a simple slap in the face would have been enough to bring the teenager to the ground, never letting her standing up again.  
She was alone, just as she had been after Nikolai's death, with a drunk man who loved to beat his young girlfriend to vent his anger, and from the bruises that covered Josephine's face and the cut she tried to hide with the hem of her sweatshirt, the bastard was always angry.  
Nadja had always heard of the wounds with which Josephine used to present herself at their meetings, not that it was so uncommon to find a woman covered with bruises in a support group for victims of domestic violence.  
Nadja was maybe the only one who did not present herself with fresh cuts or purple eyes, but not because she was better at hiding them, but because she carried the scars with her all the time, just under everyone's eyes.  
It was hard to miss, honestly, what her husband had done to her to make her remember him.  
\- Hold your breath.  
Despite the fear that made Josephine as unresponsive as a newborn child, when the whisper left her cold lips, the teenager did just that without wavering, cupping her nose with her hand when they felt the man moving in front of the old wardrobe where Nadja had dragged Josephine when the door of her home had come down with a loud crash.  
The metal of the knife she had recovered before hiding sent a cold shiver in the young woman she was clutching to her side when she let the blade flash in the darkness of the closet in feeling the presence moving in front of them, just beyond the closed wardrobe.  
\- Is he in front of me?  
This time Josephine did not answer, she did not move, or breath, a confusion she could not allow, not now, not when she needed her eyes to make her understand where the knife in her hand would have sunk, after throwing herself against the intruder to buy time for the teenager to call for help.  
She had already informed Josephine to run in the street since no one in her building would have helped them, no matter how loud her cries for help would have been.  
The people who lived in those tiny apartments had already their own problem, their own demons to face, to care about her own.  
The police. She had to find the police.  
There was a patrol who passed every hour in search of whores or small drug dealers on the sidewalk.  
Her district wasn't the safest, but it was not even that ugly or unsafe. Some good people lived there, just like her, but they used to mind their business, unlike Nadja.  
They tended to keep a low profile, to ignore the misfortune of other people,_ to mind their own business_.  
There was always a man or a woman who had lost a job, his home, a loved one, somewhere, she was not even the first woman to have been abused by her husband, she was not the only one to have had a hard life, maybe, hers was even better than their, but unlike the people around her, Nadja had never really learned to hold back her tongue when something wasn't right, especially after Cedric.  
Her husband had been a filthy son of a bitch.  
Handsome, with a smile able to melt the sun, he was the kind of man every woman would have wanted as a partner.  
Kind, with gentle eyes and hands so big to seem able to carry the weight of the world, but Nadja knew better than anyone how cruel his grip could be, how cold and unforgiving his fingers could become in crushing her throat in a deadly grip.  
The first time he had raised his hands on her had been on a sunny day, that kind of day that made you believe that everything was possible, that there was no limit to what a person could do, and Nadja had been in that kind of mood, she had felt happy and hopeful as she had not been after the death of Nikolai.  
Her papa's death had put a stop to her wandering, freezing the time around her and the life inside her.  
Nikolai had been her pillar of strength, a quiet man who did not love to talk much, but hardworking and patient, even with someone as restless as her.  
As a child, Nadja had been hard to control, a wild little thing Nikolai had not tried to bridle as many had asked him to do. Her papa had given her wings to fly instead of chains to tie her down, he had let her be how she wanted to be, lively, headstrong, always moving, always running, always shouting, collecting her wandering form when it was time for them to go home.  
Nikolai was a farmer, one of the many immigrants in search of the glorious American Dream.  
A tiny house with a single bed was what he had achieved after reaching the new world, and Nadja had been contempt with just that.  
A full stomach had been enough for her to be happy, to feel satisfied, even if she had had to follow Nikolai to the farm and wait for him to finish his job.  
Then, in her wandering, one day, she had met a young man with a book under a tree, the lazy son of the landowner, a pretty boy who had looked at her messy golden hair and pretty grey eyes with boredom before throwing her the book he was reading when, curious, she had tried to move closer.  
Nadja liked to run in the woods, in the dirt, and despite Nikolai's effort to clean her after her raids, she wasn't the tidiest child to be around.  
She had always branches stuck in her hair or trails of dirt on her cheeks, and the fact that she liked to run barefoot did not leave her with clean feet.  
The book had hit her straight in the face, but instead of wailing and calling for help, she had brought with her the book when Nikolai had called for her, curious to see something new.  
He had not inquired about it, but when the boy had not searched for her or his book, she had decided to take a look, even if she could not read so well.  
She was too young to go to school, her house too far away from the city to let her interact with other children, and Nikolai, despite his hard work, did not have the money to give her some kind of education, but she did not need one. She could always work in the field, just like her papa, but when she had begun to read, she had been captivated by the words.  
More.  
She had wanted to read more, to learn how she could to things, how she could improve, what she could do or be in that world.  
She did not have the money, but there was a library in town, and even if it took five hours to reach it by foot, she had begun to go there often, the first time to take one book, then two, then a whole stack of them, and when Miss Smith, the kind librarian who did not grimace in seeing her dirty appearance, had decided to give her some kind of guide to follow to improve in her studies, Nadja had found something she liked more than running, more than flying in the wind.  
_Teaching the things she read_  
Her first student had been her papa. He did not talk much, but he listened, especially her.  
He had noticed how little she wandered now, how quiet she had become, more composed, more peaceful, as if something had soothed the turmoil in her soul, as if something had tamed her wild spirit, complicated words that Nadja had begun to use with him to explain what she had read, what could help him in his work.  
She had read something about the best way to plant the potatoes, and she had shared her knowledge with her father, guiding him in his job.  
Nikolai had been rewarded, but instead of spending the money for himself, he had decided to buy Nadja other books, other things to read, to tame her spirit and to give her more words to lull her mind and keep her wild heart at ease.  
Then, illness had struck him, and Nikolai had never been the same.  
Alzheimer had been a world too foreign for her to understand, but Nadja had bought a book about it, she had learned what it meant, for her and her papa, and when Nikolai had begun to forget things, people, faces, she had tried to keep his mind with her with the sound of her voice.  
She had begun to read to him too, even if he did not understand what she said, even if what she said was difficult, but when she read to him, his eyes weren't so vacant, he did not seem to forget her face, her eyes, _her name. _  
Her voice and her book helped to hold him with her, to tie him to that world, but despite the many books she had read too him, despite the growing desperation in her voice and the numerous tears in her eyes, one day, her voice had not been able to reach him, not where he had gone.  
At sixteen she had lost her father.  
A social worker had come to her home to take her away, to give her a new home, a new bed, a new life, but despite the changes around her, she had tried to hold on the last thing that had remained her.  
A pair of glasses had been necessary when the sight had begun to suffer for the hours spent on reading under the blanket after the curfew, and when it had been time for her to leave the family home, she had decided to be on her own.  
She had never been good with crowds, so a flower shop had been the best choice.  
She was good at planting things, she had done it before in the farmer, and even if it wasn't much, she was satisfied with herself.  
Then, she had met him, her future husband.  
Cedric Gold.  
Even his name seemed to come out from a book, but Nadja knew how her height seemed to bother the boys around her, even her boss wasn't comfortable in being looked down upon.  
Nadja had grown tall, just as tall as Nikolai, who, between his colleagues, was called the Viking, with thin and long limbs, narrow waist and high cheekbones.  
The cold gold of her hair, the pale grey of her eyes made her look like a ghost, not the prettiest comparison, but Nadja was proud to have the same colours and looks of her papa.  
She had never known her mother, but she had never missed her.  
Nikolai had always been enough for her, so when Cedric had asked for her attention, her company, she had been surprised, but not intimidated, it required more than that to make her shy.  
She was more educated, but she was always wild, always restless, inside her heart.  
Cedric had found her deep voice and strong words fascinating, she, intriguing, and Nadja had begun to wish for a companion.  
She had wished to try something new again  
So she had found the love she had read in her books, or so she had thought, in the beginning, when the happiness had made her blind, less careful. Teaching had always been her dream, and now that she could, she had decided to focus on her study, to apply for the university.  
She had enough money to pay for the books, and she had enough brain for a scholarship, but in the sunny day when everything seemed possible, when she had decided to share with her husband her wish to learn, to become a teacher, she had met the cruel truth and Cedric's cold hands on her face.  
The blow had taken her breath away, but even before the shock could leave her mind, Cedric had hit her again, and again, and _again_, leaving her on the ground with a light head and a deep burning in her eyes.  
Then, she had felt something grazing her left cheek, then her temple, and when she had felt the tip sinking just above her eyebrow, a scream of pain had left her lips while her husband opened her eyes in two, leaving her with a bloody face and a long scar on her left eyes.  
It had been on purpose, the wound, the fists, just enough to cause her a retina detachment. Cedric was an intelligent man who, unfortunately for her, did not like to be second in anything.  
He had always disliked her interest in books, finding her search for knowledge silly, since his job as a lawyer was enough to sustain them both.  
She had noticed how dark his eyes could become when he found her perched on her favorite armchair with a book opened on her legs and a pair of headset to let her lose herself in the stories she read before going to sleep, but she had mistaken the dark look as something caused by tiredness, _not from madness._  
A madness she had been forced to face for months, for a whole year, before finding a way out, and it had not been the easiest one to take.  
Cedric had locked her up in the house, and with no family or friend to call for help and a body too thin and frail to fight back the blow and hits, she had become the victim of a monster who had tormented her with angry and cruel words she had begun to believe as true.  
She deserved it. The pain. She was ungrateful, so she needed to be punished, to be put in place.  
Cedric was enough to be happy. She did not need her books. She had just to clean the house and wait for him to come home.  
She did not deserve more. _She was nothing._ _**She deserved nothing.**_  
Nadja didn't know when that words had become her world.  
Maybe it had been the nights spent with Cedric above her with that angry voice that scared her to the core.  
Maybe it had been the hit in the head, or maybe, it had been the knowledge that now that she was blind, she was useless.  
She needed Cedric's help to do _everything_, just as he had wanted from the beginning.  
To be her number one. To be her one and only.  
**To be her priority.**  
It had been humiliating, for her, to ask Cedric to go with her to the bath the first time, then, to help her with her clothes. To feed her.  
But he seemed happy, and if he was happy she was safe, unharmed.  
It soon became a routine. Sleep. Eat. Clean. Have sex. Sleep. Eat. Have sex. Be hit. A kick. A slap.  
The blows did not even hurt as much as in the beginning.  
She was becoming accustomed to it, to that life, then, he had to do _that_, **to touch it**, and when it had happened, when Nadja had found her book, the one Nikolai had bought for her with his money, on the ground, with the pages in pieces and the cover that smelled of wine, something had snapped inside of her.  
Her eyes had become wild, her voice had returned stronger, deeper, a voice she had raised as her body began to tremble in rage, as Cedric, drunk as he always was in the evening, raised the fist to make her shut up.  
He had hit her, hard in the face, sending her on the ground with a painful throbbing in her head, but that time she had not stayed in the ground, that time she had not waited for him to hit again, that time, she had not trembled in fear.  
She had moved. She had grasped the first thing in front of her, the leg of a chair, and when she had felt the movement in front of her, the shift of air, she had launched it against him, making Cedric lose the balance and fall in the ground with her.  
Nadja did not remember what had happened after that, a fight, of that she was sure, and that she had fought, that was the only thing she remembered clearly. She had been able to give him a couple of kicks in the face, to scratch his face with her nails, but she had been the one to come out with more damage, however, unlike Cedric, she had been able to come out, somehow, while her husband, her husband had suddenly stopped shouting.  
_Breathing._  
An ugly cut on his throat had left him without a voice to use to break her mind, and when the police, called by her neighbor, had entered the house, they had found him in a pool of his blood while she remained seated on her favorite armchair, her precious book secured against her chest, and a hand pressed against the aching throat Cedric had tried to crush before she had slaughtered her husband with a shard of their table lamp.  
Legitimate defense.  
No jury would have blamed her for what she had done, not when she had only tried to remain alive, but after Cedric's death, Nadja had tried to return to her old self, her old habits.  
She had begun to read again. The braille had been difficult to learn, but she was an intelligent woman.  
She had sold Cedric's house and all his things, choosing a tiny apartment as small as a shoebox to be able to afford it even when the money had run out.  
She had decided to join a support group as the psychiatrist of the tribunal had advised her to do, and with time, she had found a job thanks to a community of blind people in a night school for immigrants, who, just like her papa, were searching their American dream.  
At thirty-two years, after a failed marriage, a sad childhood, and an attempted murder, she had returned free, or so she had been, two hours ago, before she had picked the call.  
Among the women of the group, Josephine had always been the youngest and the most unpleasant.  
Arrogant. With a permanent scowl on her face, according to who could see her face and talk about it.  
Always angry. Always with something ugly to say. Always with a new bruise on her face from what Lily, the head of the group, always stated with a disappointed voice before starting their meetings.  
Nadja and Josephine had never really bonded, or talked, not even during the meeting.  
They barely said hello to each other, but when the young girl had called her on the phone, she had found her cell number on the applications of the group, she had begged in tears to not leave her alone, imploring Nadja to not ignore her call as the others had done when she had called them for help, so she had given Josephine the address of her home, opening the door even before the teenager could began to hit it with her hands.  
She had dragged the bruised body against her chest, closing the door in hearing the heavy steps on the stairs, but when the man beyond the door had begun to use his fits to hit the door, Nadja had known that he was too lost to see reason.  
So there she was, crouched in her closet with a crying child against her chest, a knife in her hand, and an angry and drunk man who, just like Cedric, liked to hit the woman they had promised to love and protect, but, that time, she would have been the first to strike, the first to hit, and the man would not have touched Josephine, not even with a finger.  
_with her there._  
Because Josephine was just a little girl, just as she had been before, with no one to call for help, and even if Josephine probably did not even deserve her kindness, she would not have left her alone.  
She was not scared to die. To fight. To raise her voice. Not anymore.  
She was a fighter. _She was a survivor_, and if she had to die, she would have made sure to bring the son of a bitch with her.  
\- Josephine, is he in front of me?  
The hiss seemed to reach her, that time. A weak nod with her head, that one was the only thing Nadja was able to catch when she felt the brief movement under her chin, and when she asked the young girl to guide her hand where his chest was, she felt the trembling hand guide her by the wrist where she had to sink her knife.  
_Deep in his chest_.  
\- The moment I stab him, you have to run. Do not look back. Run as fast as you can. There should be a patrol down the road, ask for Liam. He is a good cop. Do we understand each other?  
Not a word left her lips, only the trembling of her body made her aware that she was listening despite the panic, that she was still with her, but she needed to move, Josephine needed to understand what to do, that she did not have time to think or to waver. That she had to act, fast, and that she did not have to look back. Not even for a minute.  
\- Do we understand each other, Josephine?  
\- And you?  
The cracking of Josephine's voice made her throw a flat look to a face she could not see, she could not imagine, but Nadja had learned to draw people's features with the sound of their voice, and if she had been able to see, a pale face with haunted eyes and a trembling line as a mouth would have been what she would have seen.  
A broken teen, Josephine was no more than that, so much like her to break her heart, to make her resolution stronger, her sense of justice deeper, her need to help sharper.  
She would not have let her fight alone against that monster.  
\- Don't worry about me. I will be right after you.  
Josephine did not believe her, Nadja did not even believe herself despite the firmness in her voice, but it did not really matter now, what mattered was that they have to act fast before he found them. Before Nadja could lose the surprise effect.  
Because, despite her words, she was still a thin woman with the strength of a scarecrow, and only the surprise of an attack could give her the chance to strike the man and save time for Josephine's flight.  
\- Ready?  
Another nod and a clumsy squeeze on her hand informed her that Josephine was ready.  
Ready to run.  
Ready to flee as the devil was chasing her, and Nadja needed for Josephine to be scared, so scared to run as she had never run before, to distance herself from the monster she was ready to kill.  
She had killed one before, after all, she was not scared to kill another one again.  
Demons were real, and she was not afraid to face demons, even when they weren't her own.  
\- One.  
The creaking in front of them advised her that the man had stopped his searching, that he was just where she needed him to be, for her knife to sink in what she was supposed to break.  
His heart. He didn't need one anyway.  
\- Two.  
Josephine's trembling became stronger, her breathing heavier, but she was ready to snap, to run, and Nadja, Nadja was ready too.  
A deep breath, a slow blink of her blind eyes, and the closet burst open with a loud crack while the roar with which Nadja had thrown herself against him startled the man as she had hoped, giving Josephine the time to go unnoticed and run towards the door.  
The knife tore what it was supposed to tear, flesh and nerves she felt snapping under the pressure of her hand as she pushed it deeper, but even before she could let go the hilt of the knife to run behind Josephine, a sudden shift of air and a low growl made her aware too late that, despite the wound, the man was sturdier than she had thought, and that she, she was too weak as she had feared.  
The floor welcomed her heavy body when the fist meet her face, making her crash against the bedside table against which she slipped with a pained moan, but the man did not let her catch her breath when he began to kick her stomach with so much rage to make her spat blood, leaving her on the floor with her rib cage completely shattered before running in the street to end what he had begun.  
Breathing hurt, but her burning lungs were too full of blood to let the air really reaching her brain, so it was alright to simply gasp a little, just enough to let her move, to let her reach the third drawer.  
She was dying. She was sure of that.  
Josephine's boyfriend had had to be a boxer. His fist had been strong but calibrated, the right pressure to make her chest shatter like glass under the blow, but there was something that not even his fist could fight, and when she reached it, when her clammy fingers closed around the cold metal, a smile bent her bloodied lips while she tried to use her good arm to raise again. To move.  
She had to.  
The bastard had not gone far. He had a kitchen knife stuck in his chest, probably close enough to his heart, and despite the adrenaline in his veins, he was human too, and even him, just like her, was probably dying.  
Good. It was good. But not enough.  
He was too gone to care about it, about the pain, about anything if not Josephine's punishment, just like Cedric.  
He had tried to choke her even with the shard of glass stuck in his throat, he had still tried to kill her despite it all , to bring her with him, but Josephine would have survived, she would have made sure of that.  
She was still a child, a stupid one for leaving her home for an older man who had promised her undying love and given only pain and fists, but she had still parents who would have welcomed her with open arms, other lessons to learn.  
She had still time. She had people that cared about her, while Nadja, Nadja had no one if not herself.  
But maybe, if God had been kind enough to let her reach heaven, she would have met her papa.  
Yes. She would have finally met Nikolai again.  
Coughing blood and saliva, Nadja raised with an angry hiss, covering her side with her right hand while the left one fell along her side under the weight of the gun she had bought for self-defence.  
She lived in a poor district, after all, and a blind woman had to have something with which defend herself.  
A whimpering left her lips when she collided against the wall, her senses had begun to shut off, but her brain was still working, and she had always had a good memory.  
The stairs were hard to descend, she stumbled on the last three, but her hand had grasped in time the railing to make her stand and reach the door that led to the street.  
When the cold air welcomed her body, brushing her golden head and her bruised face, Nadja had the instinct to fill her lung with something lighter and less thick than blood, but it costed her a cough that left her without air and a voice she needed, just a little, just enough to make him look back and leave Josephine alone.  
It was time for Liam to do his patrol, she could already hear the siren of the car at the end of the street, just as she could hear the heavy breathing of the man and the screams for help of Josephine who was still too far, but the wind helped her to identify their position, carryng their voice straight to her, and Nadja, Nadja could use it to carry hers to the man.  
\- Hey you! Piece of shit!  
More than a shout, what left her lips was a pitiful whimper, but when she grasped her rib cage to squeeze out all the voice she had left in her lungs, the words became cleaner, her voice louder, and when she heard the growling, she pointed the gun just where he was probably walking.  
Men like him hated to be insulted, to be looked down upon, and she was probably tall enough to do it, to look down on him, but she needed for him to stop, and for another sound to improve her aim, to let her shot him right in the face, it did not matter where, but everything in the face was vital, and even his nose would have been enough.  
\- Scared to face a woman, bastard?  
He turned.  
_Of course, he turned._  
Men like him were too proud to be talked that way by a _woman_, by who they believed inferior,_a waste of space_, and when she heard him call her a _dirty bitch_, when she recognized the place where he had stopped to insult her, it was with a smile that she welcomed his words, a smile that lightened up her blind eyes as her fingers clicked and the wind carried her last words that, in the deserted street, thundered as a tremendous shout.  
\- Say hello to my husband for me, son of a bitch.


	2. Chapter 2

The afterlife was plainer and less frightening than what she had thought while wishing for it after the loss of her sight, not that Nadja had expected something extraordinary, not even a special treatment, but the dull grey that filled her eyes when she blinked away the darkness was too ordinary to be real, even if, in truth, she was quite grateful for that.  
After so much time spent in the darkness, colours would have only troubled her sight, while the dull grey was fine.  
Her eyes were not used to bright colours, she had to reaccustom them to the light once again, and the mist that surrounded her was, even if ghostly and a little disturbing, peaceful.  
**Painless.**  
_Curious_, wasn't hell supposed to be more... painful? _Noisy?_  
After all, Nadja already knew, even before sinking the knife in the man’s chest, _where_ she was going to go after exhaling her last breath.  
She did not expect angelic chorus or a bull's eyes made of holy light to welcome her form, _she was a murderer_, after all, a murderer with a reason, but a murderer nevertheless, and she knew well enough where murderers would have gone.  
No golden gate would have waited for her, no forgiveness would have been shown to her sinful self, even if she had thought, _hoped_, deep in her heart, that, maybe, if she had asked nicely, she could have taken a look beyond those golden gates, just a glance to see Nikolai one last time before being engulfed by flames and be damned for eternity, a mercy that, unfortunately for her, the merciful God had not granted her.  
Not a muscle moved on her face when she heard Josephine's boyfriend shout in the mist not so far from where she was, a voice she preferred not to rise, unlike the abuser, even with the creepy atmosphere of the place to make her shiver, and not for the cold.  
Screaming would have done no good.  
They were dead, after all, they were both going to hell, and no one of them could do anything about it.  
She was not a religious person in the first place, but, if there was really a horned demon with a blazing whip out there, then, she would have made sure not to go down without a fight.  
She had always been a proud woman, and after Cedric, she had sworn to herself to never bow down to anyone, and that included ethereal beings or mighty gods.  
The devil, or whatever was waiting for them beyond the mist, could do nothing more horrible than what she had born in life, and, besides that, she had nothing to fear, nothing else to lose.   
Nikolas was gone, still too far away to let her reach him, to let him hear her voice one last time, even in death.  
There was no hope for a reunion, _for forgiveness_, but Nadja did not feel as she had to receive it, _to ask for it_.   
Forgiveness. Mercy. Why did she need that?  
For what?  
For killing a monster?   
For avenging herself?  
No. She had _nothing_ to apologize for.   
Cedric _deserved_ to die, _he deserved to suffer_, to pay for turning her in a scared and wounded creature unable to stand on her own or to bare her teeth against her abuser.  
_Animal_.  
People had always compared her to one, even as a child, and Nadja, despite her attempt to change her nature for Nikolai’s behalf, had always felt like one, like a beast that tried to behave like a human.   
She had tried to lull the turmoil in her soul with words, with what a beast could not use, what distinguished the two species from each other, _the ability of speech_, but she still remained restless, inside her heart, a creature that belonged to the wild, a beast ready to bite whatever hands tried to stop her wandering or closing the mouth Nadja pressed in a hard line when she heard the shift in the air, the move in the mist, when her eyes caught the first spark of the burst of flame that flickered in the air like a storm of fire ready to reduce her to ashes.  
Dust to dust, as they said.  
A quiet hiss was what she allowed her lips to free before closing them in an angry scowl when she felt the flame crawling on her skin, if she had skin to let burn, or hair to go on fire, or a body to let ignite, but she had still her eyes, open wide even in the darkness, to show her obstinancy not to yield, and she did not dare to move them aside to follow the cry of the man who, after a piercing scream, stopped abruptly to speak.  
Whatever had silenced him was coming straight to her, she could almost feel it moving in the air, shifting under her feet, hissing in her bones, crackling in the air, something that, however, she was not scared to face, to fight.  
She was not scared of monsters, she had had her share in her life.  
She was not scared to burn, she had gotten used to the pain.   
She was not going to bow, _no more_, but when, in a storm of flames and blazing light, it presented to her, Nadja could not help a flash of surprise to dart in her eyes while a deep chuckle left her aching throat.  
– Well, at least they had been right about the horns.   
A swirl of burned ashes tickled her face while a puff of cinders remained caught between her eyelids when the demon let his jaw part slightly, almost to hiss out a chuckle, if dragons could chuckle or exist, for the matter, but death was a mysterious thing, and Nadja was too clever to let fear or ignorance clouding her judgment.   
Whatever the beast was in reality, if Satan or a simple manifestation of what she thought she could find in hell, she was more eager to express her bad predisposition in letting herself be prey of its tantrum than letting the shock and awe made her unresponsive and vulnerable as a doll.  
Her will of surviving was still stronger even in death, an instinct she had never been able to curb or bend in life.  
_Surviving despite it all_.  
Despite Nikolai’s death.  
Despite Cedric’s betrayal.  
Despite the pain and the wounds that still made her soul bleed.  
She would have survived everything, in the end.  
He could be there to punish her for eternity with flames and whips, he could try to break her mind and body, Cedric had already tried it with his hands and his words, failing, and Nadja would have shown him, it, whatever it was, that she was a soul difficult to tame or to subdue.  
Submission was something she refused to acknowledge, _to accept_, even when it came from a God, or a Dragon God, for what it was worth.   
Her tongue was heavy as stones as she forced her lips to part and to reach her teeth, polishing them from the blood that was probably flowing like a river from the cuts she could feel popping on her skin as if something was trying to expose her bones for everyone to see, but pain was something she was accustomed, because when you touched the bottom as she had done before, everything became tolerable.   
_Bearable_.   
\- Do your worst – a cough of blood made the air freeze in her lungs and her words became ice on her tongue, but despite the blood that brushed her teeth and the breath Nadja failed to retrieve, it was with a low growling that she forced the voice to scramble on the burned layer of her throat, smiling thinly when a puff of steam left her lips, like if she too was able to breathe fire.  
\- _Because I will do the same_.   
Threatening a God wasn’t the best way to try to compromise, but there was _nothing_ the God or whatever it was could offer her to make her behave.   
She had already accepted her fate, and mercy wasn’t something she would have asked him, because she would not have had it for him either.   
Yes, there was little she could do to him, _but it was still something_, and Nadja had always been able to do much with nothing at all, but when the flame suddenly vanished in the air, leaving her with a burned body but unwavering eyes Nadja refused to low even when she fell on her knees, when she felt its voice, deep and strong reverberating in her mind, echoing in her soul, surprise returned to color her eyes as, words after words, the dragon God, just as she had guessed, a God that, however, was not hers, or of her world, tickled her interest, proposing something she had believed impossible to accomplish.   
And it was, _in that realm_.  
Nikolai belonged to a place she could not reach, not as she was now, but it, the God, could make them reunite.  
It could make her see her father again, and between all the things a God or the Devil could have proposed her to make her behave, that one was probably the only one able to make her accept the pact, whatever the price she was going to pay.   
Obedience was something she would have failed to give him, but to let him produce a new shell for her soul?  
To become a mean to achieve his purpose?  
_She could work with that_.   
The soul was hers and hers alone, but the God could bring her in his realm in whatever form he wanted if he really could do what he was promising her, if he really could bring her father back.   
She was ready to do what she must, to kill who he wanted, to punish who he desired, to be the villain, _the monster_, if he needed one, but what the God, Akatosh, as he called himself, wanted for her to be was something more.   
An experiment.   
_A try._  
An outsider that could succeed where many had failed.  
Time was no matter.  
He could turn it back as he wished, as he had already done before, bringing everything to the start whenever the result did not match his taste, or if she failed, just like the others.  
But Nadja would not have failed. She would not have lost.   
She would have survived, like always.  
She would have become part of his little game, if Nikolai’s was on the chessboard with her.   
She would have become the queen of his king, she would have accepted his dare, and, as flames returned to blind her sight and engulf her form, a burning much more bright and painful than the last one, as she let the God decide what form she would have assumed in his world, Nadja did not swallow her voice in letting herself burn.   
She did not accept in silence the change.   
She screamed. She shouted.   
And, when her voice thundered in the air, that time, it did not just seem like a roar.  
_It became one_.

°°°

When Nadja came to, the rough scratching against her cheek was the first thing she felt.  
_Wood_. She recognized it without even looking at it.   
She was lying on a wooden floor. A fallen tree maybe?   
Then, voices, low and ushered made her blink once, twice, before the scratchy wooden boards of the floor where she was lying became less blurred.  
She had been right, and judging by the way her body jolted, the thing was also moving.   
A car maybe?   
But cars had no wooden floor.   
They had seats while she, she was lying on something rougher and harder than leather.  
She could even feel the warm embrace of the sun above her head, so no roof.   
No. _No cars_.  
The sudden neighing of horses made her aware that she was lying on something without an engine, and something without an engine denoted a lack of knowledge, and a lack of knowledge denoted a primitive world.   
_A world that was not hers_ she reminded herself with a frown, letting her senses catching what she could not see, not from down below.   
She could not move, after all. Her hands were tightened. Ropes. Rough. Too tight, even if she was a woman.  
Misogyny then. But, how far did it go?  
They were cruel enough to tie a defenceless woman as a criminal without even asking for her whereabouts or her name.  
No human right then. The picture wasn’t becoming so reassuring, but Nadja had seen worse.   
Laws not always protected the weaker ones. Murderers could be freed even if guilty, so it was not so surprising.   
What surprised her was instead the language she heard but could not understand. _Not even a word_.  
**Annoying**.   
How could she ask for Alduin’s whereabout if she could not understand them?  
She did not know if it was a man, a woman or a monster.  
Akatosh had not really been helpful with the description of him/her/it.   
World-eater, it had called him, but the nickname did not help.   
People, in her world, had been called with worse names even when they were simple men and women, even if men and women with the heart of monsters.   
Vlad the Impaler. Ivan the Terrible. Bloody Mary.  
Horrible names for horrible people, so World- eater did not help, even if it could be literal and not only a metaphor.   
Still, it did not help.   
The existence of a Dragon God who could turn back in time when he wanted, opened the path to many possibilities.  
A magical world.  
A spiritual one.  
Demons could be real. There could be angels too. For now, as someone yanked her upright, men were still probably the worst of them all.   
The touch made her lips curl in distaste, but Nadja let the callous hand steadying her form, even if rather rudely, and when her feet touched the ground, when she was able to stand on her own, a small smile made the corner of her lips twitching upward when she looked _down_ upon her jailer.  
A square face. A long nose. Bushy eyebrows knitted in irritation and black eyes she could feel rummaging in her blank stare to find something to use against her.   
Fear.   
Shock.   
Panic.  
But there was none, no matter how deep he searched, how long he kept on staring at her, _she had seen worse_, she had endured worse, and he did not intimidate her.   
A growl followed Nadja’s movement when she decided to ignore the annoying man and the rotten teeth he bared in seeing her turning her face from him, but there were better things to see, to take into account other than poor personal hygiene.   
Thatched roof. Houses of stones. People dressed as during a Renaissance fair.   
A quick look at her attire informed her that despite her surrounding, she was still wearing what she was wearing before Josephine had called her on the phone.   
Tennis shoes. A pair of dark jeans. A blue wool sweater. Something casual, something people wore all the time, but the way people were staring at her made her feel like if she was the strange one.  
_Not her world_.   
Nadja nodded to herself when the reasonable voice of her conscience made her remember that what she thought normal wasn’t normal there.   
Right now, she was the outsider, an outsider they were going to behead by the bulky man dressed in black that was waiting for her and the men lined up in front of her.   
Men that, even in that world, she could look down upon.   
_ How hilarious_  
Ignoring the man and the words he was spatting to make her cower in the line, Nadja decided not to be brash or reckless despite her frustration.  
She was weaponless, not that having a sword would have changed something.   
She did not know how to wield a sword, or how to use a bow, even a shield would not have given her some kind of reassurance or help.   
She had the same build she had had in life, after all.   
Long limbs, a tall frame, high cheekbones, sharp eyes, strong words and a wild spirit, but nothing of that would have helped her. Not against real swords that could have cut her skin and made her bleed to death.   
She was still physically weak, so, running away wasn’t an option.  
They would have stabbed her even before she could have thought about it, or an arrow could have shattered her skull like the one who had just pierced the poor man’s head when he had tried to run away from the execution.   
For what reason they were being executed was something she wished to know at least, but no one seemed eager to speak to her, or to show her some kind of pity, _empathy_.  
However, when someone shoved her forward to make her move quickly, probably the bastard with the rotten teeth, what she expected to feel was the painful scraping of the ground against her knees, not a rough but gentle hand that had just grabbed her from the elbow, preventing her to fall.  
_\- Are you alright?_  
The kind voice startled her, even if she could not understand what the man had just whispered to her, but the way his callous hands squeezed her arm made her look up curiously.   
Her hair was in the way, a curtain of pale gold that covered her face and eyes, making the face of the kind man difficult for her to memorize, to engrave in her soul, so to repay it when the time had come, because, if there was something Nadja did not take for granted was sheer kindness, and he was kind, she could still feel it in the gentle hazel eyes that were scanning her face before a thundering voice ripped her off from her scrutiny.   
The man tried to be gentle in shoving her away when someone shouted him to do something, probably to stab her for her impudence, but what the kind man had in his hands were papers, no swords to push deep in her chest.   
Still, she wanted to take a better look at him despite it all.   
The woman could scream all she wanted, but she _deserved_ to have a look at the first human being who had been gentle with her, if only she had not her hair in her face, or if she could use her hands to move them away.   
A frustrated huff followed her attempt to push away with her chained wrists some locks of hair from her eyes, but when, in her attempt to clear her sight, she felt her fingers sinking in her skull, fixing her wild golden mane behind her ears, her surprised gaze found the same shock in the face of the kind man who, just like her, seemed equally amazed to see her free from the ropes that were now on the ground, apparently broken.   
_ Apparently cut _  
Ropes that Nadja remembered so strong and so tight to cut the tender skin of her wrists, to leave marks on her skin, a hold she was too weak to loosen, _to break_, still, the hands she could not move a while ago were now in her hair, hair her fingers smoothed out absentmindedly to give her time to think about the implication of the fact, but even before she could try to explain that strange turn of events, a callous hand reacher for her, grabbing her from her hair with so much violence to make her fall to the ground with a groan of pain.   
\- _Stay in your place, **whore.**_  
When the ground welcomed her knees and the palms Nadja had brought in front of her to deaden the crash, not a sound left her parted lips, her features frozen in a mask of wonder that she failed to overcome, lost in a daze that more than once she had failed to leave behind before, prey of a fear Cedric had engraved so deep in her soul to make her froze like an animal in front of a threat.  
_Post-traumatic stress disorder._   
That was the medical name her psychiatrist had given to the numb state in which she fell whenever someone attempted to hurt her, a sort of defence mechanism Cedric's abuse had branded in her brain, bringing her to believe that, if she stayed still, he would not have hurt her, if she stayed silent, he would not have tried to shut her mouth with his hands, that, if she did not fight back, he would have stopped, after a while, but the truth was that Cedric had never stopped, not even when she had begged him, not even after curling on herself, pretending to be dead, _choosing to yield_, in the end.   
_No_. He would not have stopped, just like the man who was tearing her hair, spatting words she did not understand, would not have left her alone.  
After all, it was up to her to make him stop,_ to make him yield _, like every time someone had decided to raise their hands on her.  
When the sickening _'crack_ reached her ears, Nadja failed to acknowledge the cracking of bones as the result of something _she_ had done, because she had just grasped the man's arm to push him away, to loosen the grip on her hair, but when she heard him scream, when she felt his tendons _snapping_ like bubble wrap under her fingertips, the points began to join, the picture began to form, and when she tilted her face to meet his eyes, the fear she read, the pain she saw, made a pleased smile blooming on her face while her finger sunk deeper, _his bones broke faster_, and the awareness to have become what people in her world thought of her, made a content growl gurgling in her throat.   
_**\- This is going to be fun.**_


End file.
